


The Identity Box

by vienna_salvatori



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: ADHD icon Howard Carter, Aromantic Asexual Howard Carter, Grey-Asexual Barnes, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, aroaceingtheline2021, they got very bored in quarantine okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:49:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29756424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vienna_salvatori/pseuds/vienna_salvatori
Summary: AroAceing the Line 2021 day 7: Spectrum + DiscoveryHoward and Barnes are in quarantine. Howard and Barnes are bored. Howard and Barnes have conversations, which eventually turn into something more. Because they're bored.
Relationships: Commander James Barnes/Howard Carter (Rusty Quill Gaming)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21
Collections: AroAceing the Line





	The Identity Box

‘Carter, no. Leave that alone. What are you- we’re supposed to stay in here, damnit! Carter, no!’

Howard isn’t entirely sure when he became “Carter, no”, but that’s his name now. The first bit is simple enough to explain- he’s sharing the company of military men, now (plus whatever Wilde is), so surnames are the order of the day. The “no”- well. He was brought in to do a job, and yet he gets yelled at for doing it. For doing anything, really, to the extent that he’s pretty sure they’ve christened him either “Carter No” or “Carter Stop” and the only reason the name change hasn’t been officially processed is because the entire world kind of fell over.

He _really_ doesn’t get it. Wilde brought him in to do a job, after all, and he did so while knowing _exactly_ what type of person Howard is. The man had only hired him after he’d escaped meritocratic custody for the third time, after all- he _knew_ Howard was a constantly fidgeting mess with a bizarre skill set and a chronic inability to shut up. Back then, Wilde had seemed more amused than anything else about Howard’s constant fidgeting. Amused and tired, which was honestly a pretty standard reaction people had to him. The best he’d come to hope for, really.

Since then-

Howard fights back a yelp as Barnes grabs his ankle, pulling him backwards. He scrabbles for purchase on the wall, but unfortunately, he’s done too good a job, and the brick he’d been working on comes away with his hands as Barnes yanks him backwards, forcing him to shut his eyes against the shower of mortar.

By the time he opens them again, Commander Barnes is looming over him, glaring.

‘My stash’, Howard mumbles, pointing back at the wall.

‘Your stash.’

He nods, which is a little bit awkward, given his angle on the floor. Barnes glances over, still not releasing his grip on Howard’s ankle. Then he sighs, wearily, a common reaction people seem to have to Howard. Drops his ankle and reaches over to pull out the bottle that he’d squirrelled away in the wall. His face is unreadable.

Internally, Howard starts to lament the loss of a surprisingly decent bottle of alcohol.

There is movement from upstairs- soft footsteps that must mean Wilde is preparing to come down. Daily inspection time, then. Wonderful. He knew he’d get yelled at, for this, but he had hoped for a bit of downtime before needing to deal with it.

Barnes runs a hand through his hair, tiredly. Then he seems to come to a decision. Before Howard can properly register what’s happening, Barnes has dropped the bottle back in its hiding spot, yanked the brick out of his hands, and set about covering it up again. As soon as he realises what’s happening, Howard sets to cleaning up the mortar, resetting the brick as best he can.

By the time Wilde makes it into the basement, he and Barnes are on opposite sides of the room, studiously ignoring each other, and you’d need the eye of either an archaeologist or an experienced thief to notice anything wrong with the setup.

Howard can see the issues, of course- he’s both of those things. His eye jumps straight to the misaligned brick and it takes all his self-restraint not to flinch at the rushed job. Wilde will notice. Wilde will _surely_ notice.

Wilde doesn’t notice. They pass the inspection, the trapdoor clicks shut, and Barnes joins him in getting mildly drunk.

* * *

Howard likes puzzles. Making them, solving them, it doesn’t matter, except for the fact that he usually loses patience with the making bit. So he mostly tries to solve them. It was what drew him to archaeology in the first place- a puzzle the size of the entirety of history, pre-broken into nice bite-sized chunks. It was what drew him to thievery, too- small, self-contained logic puzzles with a big enough risk to be interesting, a big enough reward to be worthwhile, and learning to pick locks gave him something to do with his hands while he tried to study all the other boring things he was supposed to understand.

Howard likes puzzles. He likes to keep himself occupied. He does not like being locked into an entirely featureless room for seven days at a time.

‘There’s nothing to do.’

‘You could draw.’ They’d given him a stack of paper and some pencils to amuse himself with, like he was a bored kid again. Howard wasn’t particularly impressed.

‘There’s nothing to draw.’

Barnes finally glances over from whatever ridiculous novel he’s reading- one of Zolf’s, by the look of it. Howard had tried to read them, and failed. There’s never anything to solve, no clever codes to break, just an endless string of entirely predictable plot twists. Sure, the writing might be good- apparently- and the romance might be well done- apparently- but Howard… well. He really _doesn’t_ have anything better to do with his time, but those novels won’t serve as much of a distraction. Not that he’ll say as much to Zolf, though. Goodness knows he seems defensive of them.

‘I’m not sure what you want me to do, Carter’, Barnes tells him. He sounds tired, although he slept deeply last night and only got up about half an hour ago. (Howard is certain that Barnes slept, because he was up most of the night pacing back and forth, and Barnes didn’t say “Carter, stop” once.) ‘You know the rules.’

‘Yes, I know the rules, but…’

Howard misses his knives. The first time he’d been stuck in here, he was able to keep them, and he’d taught himself plenty of knife tricks to pass the time. Then the others had realised that letting potentially infected people have access to weapons was a bad idea, and they were taken away. Then he’d spent a few minutes fiddling with his lockpicks, which Wilde seemed even _angrier_ about him having, and there was a lot of “why didn’t we take those from him” type conversations which entirely ignored the fact that Howard was in the room with them at the time. After that they’d forced him to entirely empty his pockets the moment he arrived back at the inn, and he was never allowed to keep anything interesting.

Barnes sighs, again, and puts down his book. Howard likes Barnes. Zolf will read through any amount of complaining, whenever they’re locked in together. Wilde doesn’t tend to need the cell that much, but he’s much the same- just sitting in the corner, staring blankly, scribbling occasionally in his notebook. He’ll read the romance novels, too, although he tends to be a bit less obvious about it. Overall: quarantine with Wilde is depressing. Quarantine with Zolf is boring. Quarantine with Barnes is both depressing and boring, but slightly less bad than the other options, even if he does seem to get yelled at even more than usual.

‘It’s day two’, Barnes points out. ‘We were fighting for our lives three days ago. Do you really get bored this quickly?’

‘Yep.’

Barnes looks to be torn between bewilderment and pity. Howard shuffles his feet, feeling a bit like a naughty schoolkid again. He’s always been like this- easily distracted and easily bored, constantly in need of _something_ to do with his time. Just because he’s used to the frustrated looks he gets from everyone doesn’t mean they actually hurt less.

‘At least…’ Barnes stops.

‘At least what?’

‘Never mind. Don’t want to give you ideas.’

‘But now I’m interested!’

‘Nope.’

‘Come on. Whatever it is, I’ll probably think of it sooner or later anyway.’

‘Carter. No.’ Barnes is clearly regretting saying anything at all, and this- this is the most interesting thing that’s happened in days. In fact…

‘I promise I won’t do whatever it is you think I’m going to do if you tell me what it is you think I’m going to do.’

Barnes side-eyes him for a moment, then shakes his head.

‘A hint, then. Just a hint.’

He picks up the book again.

‘Barnes, please. A clue? Anything?’

‘I’m just happy you haven’t resorted to sailors’ usual methods of passing the time’, Barnes mumbles.

‘Usual methods… getting drunk? We did that. Singing sea shanties? Could be fun, but I don’t think I know any. Mutiny?’ Barnes’ lips twitch, at that one, even if he’s clearly trying to hide it.

‘It’s more. Well. You put men in a confined space for long enough and they tend to get to know each other. A little too well, in some cases. Always was frustrating back in the navy. Needed to keep at least the image of discipline, and some of ’em really weren’t as subtle as they thought they were.’

‘Ah.’ _Oh. Right. Yes. Sex. That is probably a thing which people would do._

Barnes shrugs, and, apparently lacking any ideas for continuing this conversation, attempts to return to his book.

‘That. To be honest, Barnes, that wasn’t actually on my list of ways to pass the time.’

Surprisingly enough, it really wasn’t. It’s not- it’s not like he’d be opposed, actually, now that he thinks of it. Barnes is handsome enough, and it’s not like he’s got any committed attachments elsewhere. There’s nothing really _stopping_ them from going down this route if they wanted to. They could even keep it secret if either of them was the sort to care- they know what time Zolf brings food down, they know what time the inspections are, and there are _plenty_ of hours in the day where they’re entirely left to their own devices.

It just… wasn’t something that had actually come up before, somehow. Still.

‘You don’t seem keen on the idea.’

‘I’m not bored enough yet.’ There’s a long pause. ‘No offence.’

‘None taken,’ Howard assures him. Huh, this is one real weird conversation they’re having. ‘Let me know if you change your mind, I guess?’

Barnes nods, and returns to his book. Properly, this time. Howard sighs, slumps a little, and decides that actually ignoring each other for a while might be a good idea.

* * *

He draws a map of the cell. To scale, of course. Marks out every point of possible interest to either an archaeologist or a tomb robber (there aren’t many). Then he systematically records every slight blemish in the walls and gives it a different number, pretending to be a future archaeologist trying to reverse-engineer the structure of the place. Since he was here for its construction, it doesn’t work very well, and Barnes gets awfully fed up with Howard shuffling back and forth with his paper and his shoelace of known length, trying to measure things.

This keeps him occupied for almost four whole hours. He’s missed archaeology, okay? If they were allowed outside, he’s definitely at the stage of smashing a plate and burying it in the back garden, just to dig it up and glue it back together again.

Still, it keeps him occupied for almost four hours, which is nowhere near enough. Then his mind starts wandering again.

‘You know,’ Howard says, and then stops.

Barnes looks up. He’s in the middle of playing chess against himself, and losing.

‘Hmm?’

‘About our conversation yesterday…’

‘What about it?’

‘It occurred to me that boredom isn’t usually the deciding factor in these things. And I know we’re very bored. I mean, I know I am. And given the fact that you’ve just spent fifteen minutes trying to work out if you should take your own bishop, I’m getting the feeling you might be as well.’

‘I’m still not bored enough.’

‘No, no, I’m not asking or anything,’ Howard says, hurriedly. ‘It’s just that most people seem to put a lot of weight on this, right?’

‘Right, I guess.’

‘Yeah, well, correct me if I’m wrong, but neither of us seem _all_ that bothered about it,’ Howard says. ‘Not in an “oh this is so wonderful” way or in a “I’m really shy and nervous” way, or, honestly, at all.’

‘Sounds about right.’

‘Is that weird, do you think? Is it just social norms breaking because we’re locked in a box? You said this happens on sailing ships?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Barnes admits. ‘It does happen, but usually there’s a courtship of some kind to go with it.’

‘Right. So it isn’t just “I’m bored and you’re bored, lets’ do this” coming out of nowhere.’

‘In most cases, probably not. Then again, I don’t think it means everything to all people’, he adds, shooting a meaningful glance towards the trapdoor that leads to the rest of the inn.

‘What, Wilde? He’s a bit of a character, sure.’ Howard hesitates. ‘He had a bit of a reputation back in England. I’m not sure if you’d have heard of it, you don’t seem the type to follow this sort of thing.’ Barnes makes no move to interrupt, but he nods. Howard continues. ‘I don’t know what happened to change it- change him. But the papers were always full of scandals when they talked about him. I would’ve expected _him_ to be the one to bring up the idea of quarantine sex to pass the time, and certainly not out of any real feelings for the rest of us.’

‘I was thinking of Zolf, actually, for the opposite reason’, Barnes says. ‘He just doesn’t see the appeal.’

‘What, at all?’

‘Nope.’

‘Huh.’

‘And you know this because…’

Barnes snorts. ‘Apparently this room is good for bringing out these sorts of conversations. Zolf and Wilde were in the middle of one when I brought lunch, last time they were in here.’

‘Must have been interesting to walk in on.’

He shrugs. ‘They didn’t seem all too bothered. In fact, their approaches were so different, I think they were interested to hear another perspective on it all.’

Howard hesitates. ‘And what was that perspective, then?’

There’s a long pause.

‘Needs to be someone I trust’, Barnes admits, finally. ‘Beyond that, I don’t really care one way or another. Not the most usual approach to it, or so I’ve heard, but to each their own.’

‘Right. Right.’

Barnes watches him, curious. ‘You?’

‘I’m not sure. I don’t think I’ve ever put that much thought into it, to be honest.’

‘Well. You’ve definitely got the time to do that now. If you want to.’

‘I guess I do, yeah.’

* * *

Day four passes, slowly. He plays chess with Barnes and loses. They try to use the chess pieces to play some other games, which gets a little bit complicated. Howard then decides to set the pieces up like actual armies, and sketch the ensuing battle. Eventually Barnes takes the pieces back and beats himself at actual chess, while Howard starts building a tower out of cards. It falls over.

All in all, quarantine continues to be very, very, _very_ boring.

* * *

It’s on day five that Barnes finally hits the requisite level of boredom to raise the issue again.

‘If you want to, of course’, he says. ‘I know you were thinking about things. I won’t be offended if you say no.’

Howard has been playing darts with his pencils. This, he knows, is a terrible idea which is only going to break them and infuriate his future self, but he doesn’t particularly care. At this stage, it feels like the only activity he hasn’t yet wrung every last drop of entertainment out of.

He has also been thinking, because he does his best thinking when he has something to do with his hands. Apparently, ill-advised pencil darts count as something to do with his hands.

He doesn’t object to the idea. He’d worked out that much basically as soon as Barnes had first said it. There’s nothing wrong with it, and given that he’s quite literally _already_ past the point of bouncing off the walls in boredom, _anything_ to do feels like a good idea right now. In fact, his only problem with it was-

-well, it was the fact that he simply doesn’t _object_. Howard has had relationships before- utterly unmemorable, the lot of them. Yet every single time- regardless of the gender, species, _anything_ of his partner, the whole actually having sex thing was kind of a big deal. It always felt important, it was always something his partner was clearly excited for, and excitement can be infectious so usually by the time they got around to doing it, he was excited as well.

There is no weight on it, here, and Howard kind of likes it, and he’s not sure what he thinks of that.

He’s never looked at a person and wanted to have sex with them. Sure, he’s _very_ aware of the fact that his current cellmate is an incredibly attractive man, but he understands it academically rather than through any kind of actual desire for him.

He just. Doesn’t care about any of this. This is literally just something to pass the time.

‘This is only because I’m bored. Nothing against you personally, I just don’t care about, well, any of this? in general? I’m not opposed or anything, it’ll be fun. I’m sure I’m missing some emotional stuff here, though, so if that matters to you then we can. Um. Not.’ 

Barnes nods, perfectly calm. ‘That’s fine.’

Howard remembers his words from earlier. _Needs to be someone I trust_. This probably means an awful lot more to him than it does to Howard.

‘You sure?’

‘I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t.’

‘Good. Okay. Shall we?’

It’s definitely one of the weirder situations Howard has gotten himself into, but it passes the time well enough.

**Author's Note:**

> idk what I was planning to write but this was definitely not it
> 
> anyhow. Thanks for reading! And thanks for everyone who has left kudos and comments on my stuff recently- I fell headfirst into Rusty Quill Gaming, and the prompt list for this challenge gave me my first writing inspiration in AGES. Y'all are really lovely and I hope my brain cooperates and lets me keep writing for this fandom for a while!!!


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